D&D (2024) I think we are on the cusp of a sea change.

[Jfdlsjfd]

Only because the other gods cheated him and took all the good land for themselves, and then made fun of him for losing out.

Maybe the demihuman gods are the real baddies.

Actually, Gruumsh is CE because he also came too late to the alignment grab and CG was taken by the elves, LG by the dwarves... all was left was CE as well. There is strong evidence that Gruumsh is a sloth, not an orc.

 

[Reynard]

Dark Sun was in principle pretty bleak, but the reality was more Dr Who than Dr Manhattan.

I just want to say how much I LOVE this particular turn of phrase. Bravo!

 

[Faolyn]

Actually, Gruumsh is CE because he also came too late to the alignment grab and CG was taken by the elves, LG by the dwarves... all was left was CE as well. There is strong evidence that Gruumsh is a sloth, not an orc.

So he's adorable then?

 

[guachi]

I think that we are looking at as big a change in D&D "culture" as we saw in the fall of TSR and rise of WotC era. I'm confident we aren't like to see huge rules changes in 5.5 (I think backwards compatibility will be a thing, for example) but I think there are a lot of thing lining up for WotC to look at, and treat, D&D as a different thing in the very near future.

Now, just because I know some folks are going to make this argument: I don't think that was true of either the 4E or 5E transition.

4E was very much a mechanical sea change but the explicitly stated goal at the time was to "still play D&D." And 5E was a course correction, the exact opposite of a sea change. It drew heavily on GenX nostalgia and was working very hard to say "D&D is still D&D!"

I don't think that is true going forward. I think the intent is to very much alter the way the game is played (story first, etc..) and aimed at a new generation -- and that generation's values -- in a way it hasn't been since Basic and D&D cartoon days.

I'm making the mistake of responding to the first post before reading 12 other pages. Y'all are some chatty Cathys. I think it's definitely moving towards "story first" with far less emphasis on dungeons or dragons, so to speak. Unfortunately, I think D&D is terrible as this kind of "story first" game and I have little faith in the current creators that they can pull it off.

5e did a great job of making the game "feel" like D&D while also adding a lot of modern touches. I don't think the current creative team can pull this off with 5.5e and 6e. It might not matter if the player base wants something different. But my wallet will likely remain closed.

I don't object, in principle, to where the game seems to be heading. I just don't think WotC has the chops to pull it off.

 

[Oofta]

I'm making the mistake of responding to the first post before reading 12 other pages. Y'all are some chatty Cathys. I think it's definitely moving towards "story first" with far less emphasis on dungeons or dragons, so to speak. Unfortunately, I think D&D is terrible as this kind of "story first" game and I have little faith in the current creators that they can pull it off.

5e did a great job of making the game "feel" like D&D while also adding a lot of modern touches. I don't think the current creative team can pull this off with 5.5e and 6e. It might not matter if the player base wants something different. But my wallet will likely remain closed.

I don't object, in principle, to where the game seems to be heading. I just don't think WotC has the chops to pull it off.

I dunno. I don't remember the last time I used a dungeon (sometime last century I'm sure) and my last campaign was the first time in forever that I used dragons. I think the game still works just fine. Then again I prefer a light touch from a rules perspective on social and influence which may not work for everyone.

As far as whatever comes next, I'm not holding my breath, but I also don't think anyone really has a clue. My bet would be on minor cleanup, some relatively small changes that will convince some people the sky is falling. Time will tell.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Yeah, the gods of the various pantheons of D&D are almost all pretty mislabeled for what their "said alignment" and "alignment from what their actions tell us" are. Gruumsh is evil . . . because he got angry when the rest of the gods cheated him out of his fair share of the world and he decided to make a race that would take what they were rightfully owed? While Corellon freaked out when the Primal Elves started taking on humanoid forms, forever banished them from Arvandor, and eternally damned all of his children for an "inherited sin" of their ancestors (which wasn't actually even that bad of an action), and Moradin was turning an entire sub-race of his children away from him because they had the audacity to be the victims of a terrible and unthinkable (hah, get it, because they were Mind Flayer Thralls) tragedy! Gruumsh is the one we're supposed to think is evil based on this lore? We're supposed to think of Corellon as Chaotic Good and Moradin as Lawful Good when basically all of their "canon" actions in 5e lore say otherwise?

Damn, I knew WotC had a lot of bad lore this edition, which totally sucks because they did a great job with 4e (ignoring the Spellplague), but I never really realized that the bad lore went so far as to try to attach Godly Victim Blaming, Eternal Damnation, and Species-Wide Xenophobia to good deities, and attaching the "holy vengeance for being cheated by my coworkers" to an evil god.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Damn, I knew WotC had a lot of bad lore this edition, which totally sucks because they did a great job with 4e (ignoring the Spellplague), but I never really realized that the bad lore went so far as to try to attach Godly Victim Blaming, Eternal Damnation, and Species-Wide Xenophobia to good deities, and attaching the "holy vengeance for being cheated by my coworkers" to an evil god.

The whole deal with giving gods alignments is basically a bust in D&D in the longer-term, perhaps even moreso than races in the longer-term, and you're illustrating this really well. In the FR beyond some of the really creepy stuff you illustrate (which tends to be centered around demihuman gods) there's also sorts of horrible misbehaviour from "Good" gods which amounts to petty jealousy, mean-spiritedness and so on, with sometimes horrific consequences. Hell, I'm not sure any god in the FR who lets the Wall of the Faithless keep happening could be called "Good". Separately sometimes you have stuff generally like parts of the Ancient Greek pantheon being labeled "Good", which is practically an insult to them, as I don't think a damn one of them would have matched up with D&D "Good", nor wanted to (Prometheus maybe but he wasn't a god).

All I've ever seen alignments for gods do is cause confusion and frowns, really. Players, like, normal, casual players, are vexed by a lot of deity alignments if they actually find out about them, in my experience. They were an endless subject of debate when we started playing D&D, and whenever players actually learn details about almost any god the "How the heck does [insert god] have this alignment?" comes up.

Whereas if you just have the teachings of the god and the behaviour of their followers, it's much easier to work out how to relate to them.

Causing a long-term problem though is the fact that the cosmology of D&D has been aligned with er... alignments, and thus the places the gods live in the Great Wheel cosmology are based on their alignments. Which means as long as you use that cosmology and don't revise it pretty majorly, some of these problems will be fixed in place. It feels to me like D&D could use a revised cosmology which based things more on the themes and interests of the gods than the alignments - that's already in there a bit of course, but it seems to be secondary to the alignments, where it should probably be primary. Also 4E was ahead of its time when it assigned Angels to all gods, not just the good ones. The Evil gods, as discussed before, currently have no official emissaries in 5E (because they took away Angels but had enough sense not to assign Devils/Demons).

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

The whole deal with giving gods alignments is basically a bust in D&D in the longer-term, perhaps even moreso than races in the longer-term, and you're illustrating this really well. In the FR beyond some of the really creepy stuff you illustrate (which tends to be centered around demihuman gods) there's also sorts of horrible misbehaviour from "Good" gods which amounts to petty jealousy, mean-spiritedness and so on, with sometimes horrific consequences. Hell, I'm not sure any god in the FR who lets the Wall of the Faithless keep happening could be called "Good". Separately sometimes you have stuff generally like parts of the Ancient Greek pantheon being labeled "Good", which is practically an insult to them, as I don't think a damn one of them would have matched up with D&D "Good", nor wanted to (Prometheus maybe but he wasn't a god).

All I've ever seen alignments for gods do is cause confusion and frowns, really. Players, like, normal, casual players, are vexed by a lot of deity alignments if they actually find out about them, in my experience. They were an endless subject of debate when we started playing D&D, and whenever players actually learn details about almost any god the "How the heck does [insert god] have this alignment?" comes up.

Whereas if you just have the teachings of the god and the behaviour of their followers, it's much easier to work out how to relate to them.

Causing a long-term problem though is the fact that the cosmology of D&D has been aligned with er... alignments, and thus the places the gods live in the Great Wheel cosmology are based on their alignments. Which means as long as you use that cosmology and don't revise it pretty majorly, some of these problems will be fixed in place. It feels to me like D&D could use a revised cosmology which based things more on the themes and interests of the gods than the alignments - that's already in there a bit of course, but it seems to be secondary to the alignments, where it should probably be primary. Also 4E was ahead of its time when it assigned Angels to all gods, not just the good ones. The Evil gods, as discussed before, currently have no official emissaries in 5E (because they took away Angels but had enough sense not to assign Devils/Demons).

I get what you're saying overall, but counterpoint: Eberron. The gods of Eberron's Sovereign Host and Dark Six have listed alignments, and they don't create the same sort of debates/controversy that the gods of Greyhawk, the Forgotten Realms, and Dragonlance do. This is due to the fact that the gods may or may not actually exist, but they don't create these kinds of discussions (not in the real world, at least. One of the core teachings of the Blood of Vol is that if there are any gods, they're all evil for allowing peoples' souls to be destroyed after death and preventing the apotheosis of the living).

 

[TheSword]

Yeah, the gods of the various pantheons of D&D are almost all pretty mislabeled for what their "said alignment" and "alignment from what their actions tell us" are. Gruumsh is evil . . . because he got angry when the rest of the gods cheated him out of his fair share of the world and he decided to make a race that would take what they were rightfully owed? While Corellon freaked out when the Primal Elves started taking on humanoid forms, forever banished them from Arvandor, and eternally damned all of his children for an "inherited sin" of their ancestors (which wasn't actually even that bad of an action), and Moradin was turning an entire sub-race of his children away from him because they had the audacity to be the victims of a terrible and unthinkable (hah, get it, because they were Mind Flayer Thralls) tragedy! Gruumsh is the one we're supposed to think is evil based on this lore? We're supposed to think of Corellon as Chaotic Good and Moradin as Lawful Good when basically all of their "canon" actions in 5e lore say otherwise?

Damn, I knew WotC had a lot of bad lore this edition, which totally sucks because they did a great job with 4e (ignoring the Spellplague), but I never really realized that the bad lore went so far as to try to attach Godly Victim Blaming, Eternal Damnation, and Species-Wide Xenophobia to good deities, and attaching the "holy vengeance for being cheated by my coworkers" to an evil god.

I think you’re forgetting that these creation stories are told by unreliable narrators. Even given that the stories aren’t quite as simple as you make out. Though it is a good example of why this lore is good. You sound like a bitter drow matron, or surly duergar explaining to their flock why moradin and corellon are wicked.

The duergar made a deal with Asmodeus the prince of hell which you conveniently missed out. It was still greed that made them dig and dig. A lure, not a compulsion. They turned away from Moradin for treasure.

The elves were given beautiful and extremely long lived bodies because Corellon loved them, despite them turning away from him… they were also tricked to do so by an evil entity for the sake of power.

You can call it bad lore, I call it just groovy.

 

[Mind of tempest]

I think you’re forgetting that these creation stories are told by unreliable narrators. Even given that the stories aren’t quite as simple as you make out. Though it is a good example of why this lore is good. You sound like a bitter drow matron, or surly duergar explaining to their flock why moradin and corellon are wicked.

The duergar made a deal with Asmodeus the prince of hell which you conveniently missed out. It was still greed that made them dig and dig. A lure, not a compulsion. They turned away from Moradin for treasure.

The elves were given beautiful and extremely long lived bodies because Corellon loved them, despite them turning away from him… they were also tricked to do so by an evil entity for the sake of power.

You can call it bad lore, I call it just groovy.

moradin and corellon seem not to really be the problem it is the smaller gods that seem to be the problem.